Connecticut Public Acts 1996

Senate Bill No. 472

PUBLIC ACT NO. 96-166

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:

Section 1. Subsection (b) of section 22a-133m of the general statutes, as amended by section 1 of public act 95-250 and section 5 of public act 95-334, is repealed and the following is substituted in lieu thereof:

(b) The Commissioner of Economic and Community Development, in consultation with the Commissioner of Environmental Protection, shall establish the priority of sites for evaluation and remediation based upon the following factors: (1) The estimated cost of evaluating and remediating the site, if known; (2) the anticipated complexity of an evaluation of the site; (3) the estimated schedule for completing an evaluation; (4) the potential economic development benefits of the site to the state of Connecticut; and (5) any other factors which the commissioners deem relevant. No real property shall be eligible for evaluation or remediation under this section unless: (A) The Commissioner of Economic and Community Development finds that the state owns the site or otherwise has or obtains the power to approve the type of development which first occurs on the site after remediation; and (B) the Commissioner of Environmental Protection is unable to determine the responsible party for the pollution or the cleanup of the site, or the responsible party is not in timely compliance with orders issued by the commissioner to provide remedial action, or the commissioner has not issued a final decision on an order to a responsible party to provide remedial action because of (i) a request for a hearing on an order, or (ii) an order issued is subject to an appeal pending before a court. Except for any site proposed for acquisition under subsection (e) of this section, no real property shall be eligible for evaluation or remediation under this section unless the site is located in a distressed municipality, as defined in section 32-9p AS AMENDED, OR A TARGETED INVESTMENT COMMUNITY, AS DEFINED IN SECTION 32-222, AS AMENDED. For purposes of this section, "responsible party" means any person, as defined in section 22a-2, AS AMENDED who created a source of pollution on the site or an owner of the site during the investigation or remediation funded pursuant to this section.